Game: When the Sky Falls
Publisher: Malhavoc Press
Series: d20
Reviewer: Wyrdmaster
Review Dated: 21st, May 2003
Reviewer’s Rating: 7/10 [ Good ]
Total Score: 7
Average Score: 7.00
When the Sky Falls is an event book. An event book, by its very nature, is a one horse trick. An event book is only ever going to interest GMs who are tempted to use the event in their campaign world. When the Sky Falls is about the effects of a meteorite impact on a fantasy setting. When the Sky Falls is a stand alone book; whereas some other Malhavoc offerings have looked back to previous books in the series and use prestige classes and feats from them, the mechanics in this PDF are entirely self contained. The book does relate to other Malhavoc books though. The first event book from Malhavoc dealt with the death of a god and it just so happens that the stony remains of a dead god, hurtling through space and slamming into your campaign world makes for a particularly good twist for a fantasy meteorite. The Mindscapes series from Malhavoc contains references to a dreadful godlike evil known as the Dark Plea and it just so happens that the Dark Plea’s actions are responsible for bits of worlds flying through space. This always works for me. I enjoy having the option of linking supplements together and world building from clues. I don’t think I’m entirely convinced by the Dark Flea, sorry, the Dark Plea yet but we’ve only had teasers. Thanks to When the Sky Falls, I’m less hesitant about the concept than I was before.
When the Sky Falls does well by considering three main possibilities; it’s a bit of mundane ore crashing through the atmosphere, it’s a chunk of magically enhanced rock or the object is a specially constructed ark that’s coming to the end of its journey through space. Space. I wanted help from When the Sky Falls about space and I don’t get it. There’s no mention of Planar meteors. The chunks of rock and ore that smash into the ground have travelled between planets and around stars. The Engram Arks where built and then launched into space by aliens. If your material plane is without space, if it’s not large enough to support galaxies and solar systems then you’re facing one mighty GM fudge in order to explain where the meteorite has come from. The other concern I had about meteorite strikes isn’t touched on either; Druids. Are strikes natural? D&D’s already bias towards woodland Druids but what about space/cosmic Druids? No idea.
The PDF begins with a look at the impact site. I thought restricting the subject matter to meteorites of only 30 feet across was being wimpy. I wanted to have meteorites that would enable me to re-write the whole social order of the game. I was wrong. A meteorite 30 feet across is easily large enough to accomplish that. The kill zone will take out a city. By kill zone I mean: dead. No damage amounts, no saving throws, just death. As you move further away from ground zero you do have damage rules for being caught in the impact blast. 800 hit points for being within the first ½ mile range… and yes, a reflex save halves the damage, if you’re between the first ½ mile and 1 mile radius then you’re taking 500 hit points damage. Its easy to pause and poke fun at the D&D flavoured mechanics there. I can’t come up with any possible reflex dodge that has the character take less damage from the shockwave, super heated hurricane force winds and flying debris than another character would for being half a mile away. It’s not all bad. At least there are hard and fast rules for the science of the impact, you can work out how much of the demonic army will be slain when the strike takes out the capital city behind them.
The rules scale up to consider the effects of a sea landing. Really large meteorites that splash down can cause tsunamis and they’re just as spectacular in their destructive power.
The mix of science and fantasy in When the Sky Falls is right. We look briefly at side effects like acid rain and climate changes – science and look longer at ark guardians (plasma dragons!) and interesting materials (like starmilk) that can be collected from near the impact site and forged into armour and weapons. The magically enhanced meteorites, relics from space, bits of dead angels, etc, are responsible for the more exotic cast off materials. Rather nicely these extra bits of magical residue can be added to arcane spells as optional components. If the wizard’s talented enough then she can increase the potency of her spells.
The odd one out in the trilogy are the arks, the engram arks. These are the pods blasted into space by the native race of the planet Kure just before the Dark Plea destroyed them. They planned to send records of themselves – the engrams – off to find a new planet where they would be reconstructed by the memekeeper within the ark. The Dark Plea had the last laugh however and managed to corrupt every single fleeing ark. As a result there isn’t an undamaged or entirely stable memekeeper left. That’s the official story. I’m incredibly reluctant to start on the canon road until I know where it leads. Although the Dark Plea is simply flavour text in When the Sky Falls I think you could wind up with unwelcome complications if you use it. On the other hand, if you’ve already taken this bull by the horns then you’re immune. Engram arks are larger on the inside than the outside and contain a sea of glyphs, the engrams. Characters can swim in this city – something the memekeepers encourage them to do – and emerge with an engram edged onto their body. This engram will enhance their powers, magic, or skills. It’ll cost XP. Later on you’ll find a prestige class dedicated to getting the most out of these particular power ups. The engram arks are a high level encounter; ark guardians protect them and that could mean CR17 plasma dragons.
The PDF introduces two organisations. There’s the evil and chaotic Sky Callers who worship the sky’s destructive power and the League of Astronomers who take a far more arcane/ scientific and neutral approach to the meteorite phenomena. There are prestige classes that suit these two groups of people. Unfortunately these two groups are both easy hits and don’t particularly inspire.
There are four prestige classes in the download: the Astrogineer, the Engram Adept, Lord of Silence and Ruin Priest. It’s the Astrogineer that suits the League of Astronomers, the Ruin Priests who are the clerics of the Sky Chasers and (duh) the Engram Adept who strives to master the Kure engrams. The Lord of Silence is rather like an especially interesting rogue, one who’s mastered the way of the Void, that soundless expanse between planets.
There are feats too. Feats and prestige classes are par for the course in d20 supplements, even ones written to discus the impact of a meteorite. There are two sets of feats; two trees which characters can progress through by fulfilling the appropriate requirements. There’s a catch in the requirements, a quirk of reading perhaps but it seems that unless the character has an appropriate chunk of meteorite that he can’t develop the feat. Um. No. I don’t like that. I prefer to read that as unless the character has the appropriate chunk of meteorite that he can’t use the feat. Let’s not only avoid any suspicion that the loss of an item will result in the loss of a feat but also keep feats entirely clean of external influences. Sure, you can’t Great Cleave unless you have a suitable weapon for cleaving with but there’s no suggestion that training with someone else’s scimitar is insufficient to learn the feat and there’s certainly no connection between the feat and any individual sword.
Lots of the new spells focus on the engrams. There’s an entirely new type of magic in When the Sky Falls; Astromancy is introduced at the start of the book and along with it comes a compelling argument that the great power and otherworldly nature of meteorites are easily magical. In addition to a list of new spells there is a decent section that discusses how the meteorite impact could affect magic in the game world. When a thaumeteorite meteorite hits there’s a pulse that rockets through the ethereal plane (an EMP, no less) and interferes with magic but that’s just the half of it. GMs can seize on a large meteorite strike as a reason to change how magic works entirely. The nature of magic might be defined by the nature of the planet itself; perhaps all arcane magic flows through some huge relic in the crust of the planet or ebbs and flows in an ethereal web. When the meteorite strikes it can damage or destroy the regulating relic, the ethereal web or crust of the planet and this can permanently change the way magic works. When the Sky Falls presents a list of possible changes that the schools of magic could go through; some could increase in power, some could decrease in power and we’re cautioned not to annoy the players too much. I just couldn’t but help remember that some magic spells are going to shift levels between D&D 3 and 3.5. Hmmm.
There are meteorite items and monsters in chapters of their own. The meteorite items tend to be especially rare and powerful. The monsters range from fairly easy to deal with star oozes to the powerful ark guardians.
The last chapter in the download has some plot ideas. It’s here that the PDF starts to shake things up a bit and tosses in interesting curve balls such as nearly sentient machines which crashes into the planet rather than a mere meteorite or rapidly spreading space fungus.
When the Sky Falls benefits from Malhavoc’s PDF production. The document is easy to print off, the sidebars are designed to be effective and easy on the ink and you’re given tips on the best way to approach the printing. When the Sky Falls seems to be slightly lighter on the illustrations that previous Malhavoc ebooks but this is mainly because of the subject matter. You’d want to see an illustration for each beast in Mindscapes: Beasts of the Id but not expect to see an illustration for each reference of a meteorite strike’s aftermath.
When the Sky Falls proves there’s more scope to a meteorite strike than may first appear. I’ve called it a one horse trick and I think that’s fair enough but it’s worse stressing that it’s one thorough bred horse that does it trick especially well. The mix of crunch and game meal is right; the PDF isn’t taxing but gives you something to think about. It doesn’t answer all my questions and it leaves me with some concerns but it does answer many questions and ease some worries too.
